Scrapeless vs Zenrows
Scrapeless and Zenrows both rent you a remote Chrome on residential IPs that you drive over CDP. Scrapeless solves CAPTCHAs in the browser, keeps logins in profiles and lets sessions run past 15 minutes; Zenrows closes every session by 15 minutes but puts the browser next to Fetch, Extract, Crawl and Batch APIs on one credit balance.
The companies and products
Scrapeless
Scrapeless is a web scraping company that sells Agent Browser, a managed cloud browser, along with AI scrapers, a web unlocker and proxies.
Scrapeless Agent Browser is a different kind of product from boat: you get a Chromium browser in their cloud that you reach over a CDP WebSocket with Puppeteer or Playwright, an MCP server or their agent-browser CLI. Each session gets a random fingerprint, CAPTCHA solving and a residential proxy, and you pay per browser-hour plus proxy traffic. It is built for teams that scrape or automate many websites, not a machine to run their own code on.
Zenrows
Zenrows calls itself web data infrastructure built for agents and applications: APIs that fetch, extract, crawl and browse protected websites.
Browser Sessions (formerly Scraping Browser) is a remote Chrome you connect to over a WebSocket and drive with Puppeteer or Playwright through the Chrome DevTools Protocol. Each session runs on rotating residential IPs and closes after 1 to 15 minutes. It is a different kind of product from boat: a managed browser for scraping and web tasks, not a machine you get a shell on, so this page compares where the two overlap, which is browser and web agents.
Which use cases each one fits
For each use case, Battleships prices every sandbox provider on the same workload and sorts them from the cheapest monthly bill up. “14th cheapest of 367” means 13 of the other 366 providers run that workload, with every feature it needs, for less. “With limits” means the provider runs it but misses something, so it is listed after every full match. Open a use case for its whole ranking and what each provider misses.
| Use case and its workload | Scrapeless: price rank | Zenrows: price rank | boat: price rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Software factory 100 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 2,200 sessions of 8 h a month Neither Scrapeless nor Zenrows gives a shell, Docker or disk, so a coding agent cannot build or test there; boat is a full VM for that. | 96th of 367, with limits $868 a month | 59th of 367, with limits $448 a month | 3rd cheapest of 367 $634 a month |
| Always-on AI employees 50 machines 24/7 · 2 vCPU / 4 GB An assistant that runs all month needs a machine that keeps going and keeps its files, which neither browser service sells. | 224th of 366, with limits $2,628 a month | 126th of 366, with limits $833 a month | 5th cheapest of 366 $657 a month |
| Code interpreter bursts 100 at once · 1 vCPU / 2 GB · 200,000 sessions of 1 min a month | 246th of 345, with limits $249 a month | 232nd of 345, with limits $166 a month | 186th of 345, with limits $2,000 a month |
| Sandboxes for your users 300 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 30,000 sessions of 23 min a month Giving each of your users a sandbox means a machine they can run code on, which neither Scrapeless nor Zenrows offers. | 354th of 361, with limits $741 a month | 203rd of 361, with limits $361 a month | Cheapest of 361 $209 a month |
| RL rollouts 1,000 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 1,000,000 sessions of 3 min a month | 249th of 360, with limits $3,580 a month | 229th of 360, with limits $1,111 a month | 34th of 360, with limits $2,000 a month |
| Agent evals 250 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 15,000 sessions of 20 min a month | 347th of 364, with limits $399 a month | 230th of 364, with limits $166 a month | 10th cheapest of 364 $200 a month |
| CI runners 40 at once · 8 vCPU / 16 GB · 6,000 sessions of 12 min a month | 229th of 377, with limits $97 a month | 221st of 377, with limits $83 a month | 4th cheapest of 377 $86 a month |
| 24/7 dev boxes 1 machine 24/7 · 4 vCPU / 8 GB | 234th of 368, with limits $59 a month | 232nd of 368, with limits $58 a month | 18th cheapest of 368 $26 a month |
| Computer-use agents 50 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 20,000 sessions of 15 min a month Computer-use agents need a screen; Scrapeless and Zenrows show only a browser, while boat streams a full Linux desktop at 60fps. | 122nd of 369, with limits $274 a month | 93rd of 369, with limits $166 a month | 6th cheapest of 369 $200 a month |
| Browser-use agents 50 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 30,000 sessions of 10 min a month All three fit: Zenrows ranks 5th and Scrapeless 14th for browser-use agents, and boat ranks 7th when the agent also needs a shell, files or code next to the browser. | 14th cheapest of 367 $274 a month | 5th cheapest of 367 $166 a month | 7th cheapest of 367 $200 a month |
| Scraping & bots (startup scale) 50 at once · 1 vCPU / 2 GB · 100,000 sessions of 3 min a month For startup-scale scraping, Zenrows comes to $227 a month against $370 on Scrapeless, and boat comes to $90 when you bring your own scrapers and proxies. | 33rd cheapest of 346 $370 a month | 18th cheapest of 346 $227 a month | 6th cheapest of 346 $90 a month |
| Mass scraping & bots (undetectable) 1,000 at once · 1 vCPU / 2 GB · 3,000,000 sessions of 2 min a month Mass scraping of sites with strong bot checks is where Scrapeless ranks 6th, with CAPTCHA solving and fingerprints built in; Zenrows ranks 70th and boat 71st, and boat has no residential proxy network of its own. | 6th of 338, with limits $7,020 a month | 70th of 338, with limits $1,791 a month | 71st of 338, with limits $1,800 a month |
| Parallel red teaming 200 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 5,000 sessions of 30 min a month Red-team agents need their own tools and a machine to break, not a remote browser tab. | 200th of 360, with limits $199 a month | 149th of 360, with limits $115 a month | 2nd cheapest of 360 $200 a month |
| GPU eval jobs 10 at once · 8 vCPU / 32 GB · 500 sessions of 30 min a month | Can't run it | Can't run it | Can't run it |
| macOS agents 5 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 1,000 sessions of 20 min a month | Can't run it | Can't run it | Can't run it |
Key features
| Feature | Scrapeless | Zenrows | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| What you get | A managed Chromium browser reached over a CDP WebSocket | A remote Chrome session reached over CDP at wss://browser.zenrows.com | A full Linux VM with its own kernel and root, on dedicated AMD Ryzen 9 9950X hosts, with Chromium inside |
| Session length | 3 minutes by default, 15 minutes recommended at most, longer values allowed | 1 to 15 minutes, 3 by default, then the session closes | No cap on paid plans; you set the time to live |
| State between sessions | Browser profiles keep cookies, storage, cache and logins, saved when the session closes | The session closes and frees its resources; no saved state documented | The whole disk is saved every minute and on stop; a stopped sandbox costs nothing |
| Shell, code and Docker | No shell on the machine running the browser | No shell; browser control over CDP only | SSH, root, Docker, systemd and /dev/kvm |
| Machine size | Not published; you buy browser-hours | Not published; you buy credits per browser minute | 4 vCPU / 8 GB by default, up to 16 vCPU / 32 GB on larger plans |
| Fingerprints and CAPTCHAs | Random fingerprint per session, CAPTCHA solving included at no extra charge | Browser Sessions cannot solve CAPTCHAs; viewport and user agent changes are blocked | Chromium you fully control; no fingerprint rotation or CAPTCHA solving built in |
| Residential IPs | Over 70 million in 195 countries, down to state and city; your own proxy on paid plans | Over 55 million in 190+ countries, rotating on every request, with country targeting | Traffic leaves from EU data centers; run your own proxy client inside the VM |
| Other web data tools | AI Scraper tasks for ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and more, a web unlocker and proxies | Fetch, Extract, Crawl and Batch APIs with anti-bot bypass, on the same credit balance | None; you write or install your own scrapers |
| MCP server | MIT-licensed MCP server with browser, scrape, crawl and Google search tools | Hosted or local MCP server with scrape, extract, crawl, batch and browser tools | No MCP server; agents drive the sandbox through the API and CLI |
| Watching the session | Live URL to watch and control the browser, plus optional session recording | No desktop stream; screenshots and page actions through CDP or MCP tools | A full Linux desktop streamed at 60fps with computer use, embeddable and recordable |
| Agents | A CLI skill and MCP server so an agent on your own machine drives the cloud browser | Tools for your agent to call; no agent runs inside Zenrows | Claude Code, Codex and five other coding agents preinstalled, with a prompt, steer and events API |
| Secrets | Credential store and 1Password link that fill website logins into the browser | Not documented; auth is your Zenrows API key | Credentials proxy: real keys never enter the sandbox, for any HTTPS API |
| Hosting your own services | No way to serve your own ports | None; you connect out to a shared Zenrows endpoint | HTTPS URLs for up to 50 ports, token-protected by default; raw TCP |
| Where it runs | More than 12 data centers; proxy exits in 195 countries | Primarily hosted on DigitalOcean, no region to choose; proxy exits worldwide | EU only (Germany, Finland, France), with EU data residency |
Every feature Battleships tracks (43)
| Feature | Scrapeless | Zenrows | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full VM (own kernel) | Not published | No | Yes |
| Docker inside | No | No | Yes |
| Nested virtualization | No | No | Yes |
| Root | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Systemd | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Desktop GUI | No | No | Yes |
| Browser | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Computer-use API | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| SSH | No | No | Yes |
| Persistent disk | No | No | Yes |
| Pause/resume | No | No | Yes |
| Automatic snapshots | No | No | Yes |
| Fork/clone | No | No | Yes |
| Live fork (no pause) | No | No | Yes |
| Memory fork | No | No | No |
| Custom image (Docker or snapshot) | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| ≥24 h sessions | No | No | Yes |
| Idle auto-stop | Yes | Yes | No |
| Wake on request | No | No | No |
| HTTPS preview URLs | No | No | Yes |
| Raw TCP inbound | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Public IPv4 | No | No | No |
| Egress allowlist | No | No | No |
| Secret proxy | No | No | Yes |
| Secret proxy for any API | No | No | Yes |
| Preinstalled agents | No | No | Yes |
| Agent harness API | No | No | Yes |
| MCP server | Yes | Yes | No |
| GPU | No | No | No |
| Windows | No | No | No |
| Arm64 | No | No | No |
| Self-hosting | No | No | No |
| BYOC | No | No | No |
| Open source | No | No | No |
| Scoped API keys | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Spend limits | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Usage per sandbox (API) | No | No | Yes |
| Audit logs | Not published | Not published | No |
| SSO | Yes | Yes | No |
| SOC 2 | Yes | Yes | No |
| HIPAA | Yes | No | No |
| EU data residency | No | No | Yes |
| Zero data retention | Not published | Not published | Yes |
Performance
There is no comparable measurement for either. Scrapeless and Zenrows do not publish the CPU or memory behind a browser session, and neither is in the CPU benchmark. boat scored 26.69 runs per second on the hpc-sandbox-benchmarks Node.js test at 4 vCPU / 8 GB.
Node.js build-and-test loop at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, higher is better. Measured with the open hpc-sandbox-benchmarks suite. Scrapeless and Zenrows have no published run in this suite yet, so there is no like-for-like number to compare.
Pricing in five scenarios
Each bill is priced from the providers' public price lists by the open Battleships engine, with the cheapest plan that runs the scenario.
| Scenario | Scrapeless, a month | Zenrows, a month | boat, a month |
|---|---|---|---|
| One coding agent, workdays 4 vCPU / 8 GB, 50 GB disk, 8 hours a day, 22 days a month, files kept between days | $399 · Business · with limits | $2,499 · Scale S5 (annual) · with limits | $20 · $20/mo |
| One agent that never stops 4 vCPU / 8 GB, 50 GB disk, running 24/7 all month | $399 · Business · with limits | $2,499 · Scale S5 (annual) · with limits | $26 · $20/mo |
| 50 agents in parallel 50 machines of 4 vCPU / 8 GB at once, 8-hour sessions, 1,100 sessions a month, Docker inside | $570 · Business · with limits | $2,499 · Scale S5 (annual) · with limits | $317 · $20/mo × 3 seats |
| Sandboxes for your users 2 vCPU / 4 GB, 30,000 sessions of 10 minutes a month, up to 300 at once | $399 · Business · with limits | $2,499 · Scale S5 (annual) · with limits | $200 · $100/mo × 2 seats |
| 1,000 short jobs at once 2 vCPU / 4 GB, 1,000 at once, 3 minutes each, 200,000 jobs a month | $716 · Business · with limits | $2,499 · Scale S5 (annual) · with limits | $2,000 · $2000/mo · with limits |
Scrapeless: Scrapeless plans of $49, $199 or $399 a month are prepaid into a balance, and unused funds do not roll over. Browser time runs from $0.09 an hour down to $0.072 on larger plans, with residential proxy traffic billed per GB on top, from $1.80 down to $1.44.
Zenrows: Zenrows sells monthly credit plans from $19, shared by all its products. A browser session costs 5 credits a minute plus bandwidth at 25,000 credits per GB; plan credits expire at each renewal, and top-ups roll over once.
Zenrows: Plans start at $20 a month, and the whole fee is usage credit spent per second while a sandbox runs. A stopped sandbox costs nothing and keeps its disk.
Limits in those scenarios
Neither Scrapeless nor Zenrows fits any of the five scenarios, because each asks for a general machine and both sell a browser session with no disk, no shell and no published size. Zenrows is the harder stop, since its sessions close by 15 minutes on every plan; Scrapeless sessions are built to last minutes too, and both top out at 400 sessions at once on their biggest self-serve plans. boat fits four scenarios; at 1,000 short jobs at once its $2,000 plan queues the starts.
| Scenario | Scrapeless | Zenrows | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| One coding agent, workdays |
|
| None that bite |
| One agent that never stops |
|
| None that bite |
| 50 agents in parallel |
|
| None that bite |
| Sandboxes for your users |
|
| None that bite |
| 1,000 short jobs at once |
|
|
|
Which one should you use?
Use Scrapeless when
you scrape sites with strong bot checks and want CAPTCHA solving, fingerprints, city-level residential IPs and saved logins handled inside the browser.
- CAPTCHAs solved inside the browser. For sites with strong bot checks: every session gets a random fingerprint, and CAPTCHA solving is included at no extra charge.
- Logins that carry over. For tasks that log in once and come back: profiles keep cookies, storage and logins between sessions, and sessions can run past 15 minutes.
- Proxies down to the city. For geo-specific scraping: over 70 million residential IPs in 195 countries, pinned to a state or city, or your own proxy on paid plans.
Use Zenrows when
your agent opens protected pages for a few minutes at a time, or when you want Fetch, Extract and Crawl APIs and an MCP server on one credit balance.
- A full web data toolbox. For teams that want pages and data more than a browser: Fetch, Extract, Crawl and Batch share one credit balance with Browser Sessions.
- Small plans to start. For short, spiky page visits: a session costs 5 credits a minute, paid plans start at $19, and the free plan needs no card.
- IPs that rotate by default. For scraping many pages fast: over 55 million residential IPs in 190+ countries rotate on every request, with country targeting.
Where boat fits
Scrapeless and Zenrows are scraping browsers, not sandboxes, so if what you are really running is agents that browse as part of bigger work, boat is the other thing to look at. A boat sandbox is a whole Linux VM with Chromium, a 60fps desktop, a shell and Docker, so the browser is one tool among many. If you need residential IPs and CAPTCHA solving, an agent on boat can still connect out to Scrapeless or Zenrows over CDP.
A whole machine around the browser
Scrapeless and Zenrows give you a browser over CDP with no shell under it. Your agent's code, files and tools run on a second machine you manage, and every page and result has to cross between the two.
Work that runs for hours and keeps its files
Zenrows closes every session by 15 minutes, so an eight-hour task reconnects about 32 times. Scrapeless can run longer but saves only a browser profile, and only the last session to close. boat saves the whole disk every minute and can fork a running sandbox.
Agents inside, driven from outside
With either service, an agent on your own server drives the cloud browser, so you host and watch it and its model keys live there. boat preinstalls Claude Code, Codex and more, keeps keys behind a credentials proxy and streams a 60fps desktop.
Use boat when your agent does more than browse: it needs a shell, files, Docker, a desktop or a server next to the browser, and it has to keep working for hours or days. Compare it one to one: boat vs Scrapeless and boat vs Zenrows.
Questions people ask
Is Scrapeless cheaper than Zenrows?
It depends on the job. For browser-use agents Zenrows comes to $166 a month against $274 on Scrapeless, but for mass scraping of protected sites Scrapeless comes to $7,020 against $1,791 on Zenrows, with CAPTCHA solving that Zenrows Browser Sessions lack. Proxy or bandwidth traffic is billed on top with both.
Which one lets a browser session run longer?
Scrapeless. Its sessions default to 3 minutes with 15 minutes recommended, but longer values can be set. Zenrows sessions close after at most 15 minutes. boat has no session cap on paid plans.
Which is better at CAPTCHAs?
Scrapeless includes CAPTCHA solving and a random fingerprint in every browser session. Zenrows Browser Sessions cannot solve CAPTCHAs, though its Fetch API has anti-CAPTCHA features.
Which is faster?
Neither publishes the CPU or memory behind a session, and neither is in the CPU benchmark, so there is no fair speed comparison. boat scored 26.69 runs per second on the Node.js test at 4 vCPU / 8 GB.
Can Scrapeless or Zenrows run Docker?
No. Both give you a browser over CDP with no shell, disk or Docker. boat gives you a full Linux VM with root, Docker and systemd, and an agent there can still connect out to either browser.
Do both have an MCP server?
Yes. Scrapeless has an MIT-licensed MCP server with browser, scrape, crawl and Google search tools, and Zenrows has a hosted or local one with scrape, extract, crawl, batch and browser tools.
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